As the sun’s 11-year cycle of magnetic storms moves closer to peak intensity sometime early next year, people who live at higher latitudes can expect to see colorful auroras lighting up the night sky. But what would it be like to look down at the auroras, or to move through them? In these striking images from NASA, we find out. Astronaut Don Pettit has been orbiting the Earth since December, as a Flight Engineer for International Space Station Expedition 30, and while up there he’s been taking advantage of the increased solar activity by filming some of the fireworks in the Earth’s magnetosphere. “We can actually fly into the auroras,” Pettit says in this NASA ScienceCast. “It’s like being shrunk down and put inside of a neon sign.” To learn more, you can read the article at NASA Science News, and to watch other episodes in the series, visit the ScienceCasts home page. Find more excellent clips in our collection of Great Science Videos.

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Open Culture editor Dan Colman scours the web for the best educational media. He finds the free courses and audio books you need, the language lessons & movies you want, and plenty of enlightenment in between.